Ewan MacColl (b. James Henry Miller, 25 January 1915 – 22 October 1989) was that rare combination of traditional and revival singer at one and the same time. He was married for many years to Peggy Seeger, with whom he released many songs

Born in Auchterarder, Perthshire, Scotland, MacColl learned most of his songs from his father and other members of his family, as well as from Scottish and English neighbors of childhood days. “My old man was the
best singer I ever heard,” he says.

Unlike so many traditional. singers whose music was kept alive in relatively isolated: rural areas, the MacColl family was a product of the industrial age. His father was an iron-moulder who worked at his trade irregularly as a result of being blacklisted for trade union organizing activities. His mother, from whom he also learned
many songs worked on and off as a charwoman in all the industrial cities of England and Scotland as the MacColls moved from town to town trying to escape the penalties of the father’s trade union activities. One writer has called him the “Folksinger of the Industrial Age.”

During the 1930’s, MacColl found himself in the burgeoning British workers’ theater movement. His natural political inclinations, together with an instinctive flair for dranta and song led him to the “agit-prop” performing groups of the depression era whose stage was more often a street before a factory gate, or a union meeting hall than a formal theater. In the years since then, he became the leading presenter of folk songs on British radio and television, either writing or appearing in more than 50 different BBC programs. Song-writer, recording and concert artist, Ewan MacColl was a towering figure in the world of folk music.

MacColl himself wrote over 300 songs, some of which have been recorded by artists such as Planxty, Simon & Garfunkel, The Dubliners, Dick Gaughan, Phil Ochs, The Clancy Brothers, Elvis Presley, Weddings Parties Anything, and Johnny Cash.